I have now, my beloved Serenus, given you an account of what things can preserve peace of mind, what things can restore it to us, what can arrest the vices which secretly undermine it: yet be assured, that none of these is strong enough to enable us to retain so fleeting a blessing, unless we watch over our vacillating mind with intense and unremitting care.
I can be offered all the most profound insights, and be armed with quivers full of clever trick arrows, and read all the most esteemed books, the ones the talking heads said were life-changing, and none of it will do me any good at all if I won’t take responsibility for myself.
I might think it easier and more gratifying to embrace a way of thinking that casts blame far and wide, wallows in self-righteous indignance, and demands constant recognition and compensation. Yet none of that addresses who I am, or what I choose to do, and it merely passes the buck. I become morally lazy, a man who makes excuses instead of owning himself.
I like owls not just because they are viewed as symbols of wisdom, but also because they are ever watchful, surely itself a property of acute awareness. I once slept in a barn where an owl gazed at me constantly from the rafters, and instead of feeling weirded out, I felt oddly safe. He looked out for me far better than I could look out for myself.
My calling to a watchfulness over myself does not require worry, or anxiety, or constant struggle. It can be calm, and restful, and secure, safe in the knowledge that nothing can harm me on the inside if I don’t let the fretting or the fear enter into my own estimation.
It won’t be enough to speak of it in theory, because on any given day, at every possible moment, I need to maintain a conscious commitment to my character. Activity, and not mere passivity, are suitable for any creature that has life, and a life of action that follows from deliberate judgment is most suitable for a creature endowed with reason and choice.
The peace of mind will not come to me of its own accord, but is rather something I must take a hold of for myself. It will not follow from accumulating things, or winning praises, or wallowing in brutish pleasures; those are hardly achievements in any way, because they have very little to do with me. No, the transformation comes from a mastery of my own thoughts.
With time, that attentiveness and watchfulness take on the form of a habit, and yet even if it becomes easier, it must still remain conscious at all times. Doubt creeps in when I’m not looking, and my convictions become weak when I’ve let down my guard. If I know what life is about, I will be just as willing to be dedicated to my own wisdom and virtue as I was once dedicated to running after vanities.
“Why am I not happy, at peace with myself and my world?” There is no secret formula to be discovered somewhere out there; if I am honest, I will know that it is because I haven’t been taking care of myself.
Written in 1/2012
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